Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 3: Secretary Bird

Because it’s a bird of prey which has evolved long legs like a crane; something I think is just fabulous beyond words. They stalk across the grasslands of Africa, hunting small prey like snakes and lizards.

It looks more eccentric than terrifying, and it hasn’t lost the power of flight; but as a long-legged predatory bird, it offers a faint echo of the prehistoric Phorusrhacids which once roamed South America, crunching the skulls of their prey in their huge hooked beaks.